


made of outer space

by gealbhan



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Anxiety, Childhood Friends, F/F, Fire Emblem Femslash Week, Kid Fic, Mild Angst, Pre-Canon, Tanabata, unrequited cordelia/chrom & sumia/chrom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-01
Updated: 2016-09-01
Packaged: 2018-08-12 10:23:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7931047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gealbhan/pseuds/gealbhan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You're good at everything, what about acting?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	made of outer space

**Author's Note:**

> \+ written for fire emblem femslash week day 4: legend.
> 
> \+ the legend of orihime and hikoboshi is a [real folktale](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Weaver_Girl_and_the_Cowherd), and observed during [tanabata](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanabata). i'm not japanese and i've lived in america my entire life, so if anything is widely off in the portrayal of tanabata - other than the play since that probably doesnt really happen in the majority of star festivals, right?? - lmk!
> 
> \+ tw for brief violence/blood at the very end. also earlier on a brief homophobic thought.
> 
> \+ title is from "arabella" by arctic monkeys.

“It's the Star Festival this week,” says a fourteen-year-old Sumia, eyes alight with joy. She bounces on the tips of her boots. Next to her, Cordelia, only a little older, maintains a cool visage but does find her attention caught by the paper decorations, scrawls on some of the slips of colored paper. “And this year it isn't raining like it was last year, so Orihime and Hikoboshi can see each other again!” A dreamy sigh. “Cor, don't you wish you could have a romance as tragic and heartbreaking as theirs?”

“Not really,” says Cordelia. She shrugs at the offended look Sumia gives her. “Who'd want to be so miserable?”

Her, apparently, she thinks; Sumia's response is lost in the roar of the crowds as the young Prince Chrom strolls through the street, flanked by a knight and his sister. Cordelia feels a blush spread over her face, and scuffs at the ground. She glances up, happening to see Sumia with an even pinker face than hers, another sigh—subconscious—falling from her lips.

Cordelia clears her throat. “I guess it wouldn't be so bad,” she settles on, and Sumia's starry gaze is worth it. The sun gleams down on them both, and Cordelia is glad for cutting her hair a couple months ago. “As long as they loved each other, I guess...” She flushes, a little harder than the last time.

“Speaking of!” Sumia balls her hands into fists and brightens. “You're good at everything, what about acting?”

“...why?”

“'Cause we're gonna play Orihime and Hikoboshi in this year's play,” says Sumia. There might be literal stars in her eyes.

“Why?” repeats Cordelia. She crosses her arms. “And why didn't you tell me before?” Her head rushes with nerves—even if she's _good at everything_ , like Sumia says, acting has never been her penchant. And without months of practice, drilled into her as harshly as her pegasus knight training—

“I wanted it to be a surprise.” Sumia's eyes widen. “Oh no, did you not want to do it? I signed you up to play Hikoboshi, but if you don't want to I'm sure they could find someone else—” Her lower lip quivers.

Cordelia doesn't want her to run off in tears and trip over something and scrape herself up, like she always seems to do, so she says: “Fine, I'll do it.” It doesn't mean she has to be happy about it. Sumia seems satisfied with this, relaxing at once. “Why am I Hikoboshi, though? Doesn't the role need to be played by, um... well, a boy?”

She's thinking about the routine play every year, about how there's always a staged kiss between the reuniting lovers at the end, and feels something at the thought of kissing Sumia. She doesn't know what it is: disgust, it has to be, with how her pulse is racing and her face is growing warm. After all, Sumia is her best friend, and—

A girl. Like she is.

She's been zoning out, she realizes at Sumia's hand waving before her face. “Hey, you okay?” Sumia looks concerned, sun catching on her hair. It lights her face, too, glimmering across her cheekbones, which are flushed with heat or leftover embarrassment of Chrom passing by. “Cordelia?”

“I'm fine,” says Cordelia, a little sharper than she means. Sumia blinks, and looks at her shoes. “Sorry. Just—thinking.”

“Okay,” says Sumia, softly. The quirk of her eyebrows says she's worrying.

“I'm all right, I swear,” says Cordelia, and lays a hand on Sumia's shoulder. Sumia grins at her. “So, about the play...”

  


  


It's the night of the play and Cordelia is terrified.

The other knights-in-training bicker about her in corridors and the dining hall when they think she's not listening, talk about how _stuck-up_ and _effortlessly perfect_ she is, and how they hate her. They don't know how she trains at night, desperate to make an impression, to be someone her parents would give a second look to. They don't know about the anxiety she paces and wrings her hands with now, they don't know that in the end, she's not as perfect as everyone seems to think.

Sumia pokes her head into her makeshift dressing room—it's not a room, really, just an area of the backstage with a curtain draped up and a mirror and her costume and makeup tossed to the side. “Hey! You ready?” Sumia grins, in a pale blue dress that swishes around her ankles; there are little stars on the sleeves, and she's wearing navy sandals and her hair's done up in a really pretty bun.

Cordelia, with her neck-length hair and a little makeup, looks enough to pass for a boy. She'd struggled into the costume, less traditional and more flashy, but she can't help but think that she does look okay with it on. “As ready as I'll ever be,” she says, and rises from her seat. She's memorized most of her lines, she's dressed up, but the anxiety isn't leaving.

Oh well. She's gone fine with it before, in training. This is a new battlefield, but she will try her best. It's all she can do, isn't it?

And with Sumia's smile, she won't regret agreeing even if she screws up.

Sumia says, “C'mon, then,” and drags her onto the stage.

There are flashing lights, and too many people in the crowd below, arranged into neat rows, but Cordelia catches sight of blue hair in the first row and feels herself glow. The opening narration finishes, and she ducks off to the side, waiting for her cue.

It comes, after a few minutes of Sumia and Tentei's actor throwing lines back and forth. Out on the stage, she takes a deep breath, and—

  


  


Sumia laughs herself hoarse once it's done. “You're a terrible actor,” she gasps out, and Cordelia feels her face heat. The crowd had seemed to want to appease them, so their applause wasn't one-hundred percent genuine. It wasn't regarding Cordelia, at least—Sumia was great, and so was Tentei's actor.

She was the weak link, and wasn't that a twist.

“Can we stop talking about it,” grits out Cordelia. She's a bit angry at herself, for being so deadpan and quiet on-stage, muted in a way she doesn't think she is everywhere else. “I just—” She can't believe her eyes are starting to burn. She doesn't cry in front of anyone. She is Cordelia, future pegasus knight. She is—

Sumia sees something in her face. She must, for she pauses and looks at Cordelia, really looks at her, and Cordelia feels herself blush.

(On-stage they hadn't kissed; had just wrapped their arms around each other. Cordelia's not sure if she's disappointed or relieved—it can't be the latter, it simply can't.)

“Okay,” says Sumia. And then she trips over her own feet and Cordelia catches her and the night dissipates into giggles and forgotten promises.

  


  


(On the battlefield, years later, they'll have faced their own fears as best they can, and there will be blood of fallen comrades. They'll have worked together as friends, as best friends, and as something more, and yet—

Cordelia is spitting blood, yet still she says: “I'll be fine.” She's sure she will: their healers are the best around, and Robin is yelling out swears and encouraging words alike, making their way to her where she lay in the grass.

Sumia is looking down at her, and running her right hand—the wedding ring is cool against Cordelia's cheek—along Cordelia's face, and saying: “You're still a terrible actor.”

But she's not acting, and in a sickbed later, she'll be bruised but alive, and Lissa and Maribelle fussing over, and she'll say to Sumia, close at her side: “Wasn't acting.”

And Sumia will kiss her fingers and giggle, but she'll say: “At that Star Festival, I wished for something.”

And Cordelia will ask: “What?”—though she's sure she knows.

And Sumia will say: “I wished that you and I could be happy together, and stay together for the rest of our lives.”)

**Author's Note:**

> \+ if you liked please comment and/or leave kudos!!


End file.
